My.Scarcity!

SMS messages could be used to hijack a phone. 

Be careful who you give your mobile phone number out to. An attacker with the right toolkits and skill could hijack your phone remotely just by sending SMS messages to it, according to mobile security firm Trust Digital.

In what it calls a "Midnight Raid Attack" because it would be most effective when a victim is asleep, an attacker could send a text message to a phone that would automatically start up a Web browser and direct the phone to a malicious Web site, said Dan Dearing, vice president of marketing at Trust Digital. The Web site could then download an executable file on the mobile phone that steals data off the phone, he said.

In another type of attack, an attacker could hijack a phone by sending a type of SMS message called a control message over the GSM network to a victim's phone that is using a WiFi network and then use special toolkits to sniff the Wifi traffic looking for the victim's e-mail log-in information.

While the attacks at this point are proof-of-concepts, they could be done if someone has the requisite knowledge and toolkits, said Dearing. Trust Digital recently announced software called EMM 8.0 that can help organizations protect employee phones from these types of attacks, he said.

"This is a completely real threat," said Philippe Winthrop, a director in the global wireless practice at Strategy Analytics. "We will see these attacks. It's a matter of time."

In the Trust Digital demo on YouTube, an attacker sends an SMS message to the victim phone (on the left) which opens up a Web browser and downloads an executable file that directs it to send an SMS to the attacker's phone (on the right).

We all spend some of our time at work doing things that have nothing to do with our job. We surf the Web. We play games. Sure, we all need our downtime, and the enlightened manager knows that. But still, we'd rather just surf in private than deal with the raised eyebrows.

That's why we need ways to ensure that when our boss surprises us or sneaks up behind us, she'll think that we're actually working. Here's a list of apps and services that help. 

Camouflaged Web services

SpreadTweet If you're a Twitter fanatic, try SpreadTweet. The software hides your Twitter stream in what looks like an Excel window. It displays everything in plain text to make it look like a real spreadsheet. It's sure to fool any boss.

1cup1coffee 1cup1coffee looks like a Windows Explorer pane (so don't use it on a Mac), but all those Word documents and Powerpoint presentations are actually a collection of Flash games. Simply click on one of the "files" and you can play a game in what looks like your Windows Explorer window. If you hear your boss, you can hit the back button and you'll be brought back to the file listing.

 1Cup1Coffee makes a list of games look like Windows Explorer. 

Phone, IPod, Internet, and more.  

Introducing iPhone 3G. With fast 3G wireless technology, GPS mapping, support for enterprise features like Microsoft Exchange, and the new App Store, iPhone 3G puts even more features at your fingertips. And like the original iPhone, it combines three products in one — a revolutionary phone, a widescreen iPod, and a breakthrough Internet device with rich HTML email and a desktop-class web browser. iPhone 3G. It redefines what a mobile phone can do — again.

Microsoft: Server version of Windows 7 this year

SAN FRANCISCO--Windows Server boss Bill Laing said in an interview Friday that the server version of Windows 7 will ship this calendar year.

Using a little bit of deduction, I'd say that means Windows 7 continues to be tracking ahead of schedule. Although Laing's comments referred to Windows Server 2008 R2 and not to the desktop version, server products traditionally ship after desktop operating systems based on the same code base, owing to greater testing needs.

"We've really been executing," Laing said, noting that although the R2 product is a relatively minor release for the server unit, it still packs more features than he would have expected a year and a half ago.

As was the case with Windows 7, Microsoft shipped a beta version of the server update in January, after sharing it with some early customers in December. The next version, a release candidate, is due soon. Laing wouldn't say whether it would ship by next month, as is being speculated on the desktop side of things.

"I'm not sure yet," Laing said. "It's not far away, but we don't have a final date yet."

Microsoft's desktop unit has tried to give itself a lot of wiggle room by not committing to launch Windows 7 this year, although it has been working toward that goal for months. I've heard that the company plans to finalize the code as early as June if all goes well with the release candidate.

A spokeswoman for the desktop Windows unit did not immediately have any update to Microsoft's longstanding official comment, which is that Windows 7 will ship by next January.

I chatted with Laing about a number of other topics during an hour-long meeting Friday, including prospects of a Sun-IBM merger, the sorry state of the server market as well as the story behind Microsoft's new version of Windows for cheap servers. I should have more on all that shortly.

The fourth installment of the Terminator series follows an adult John Connor (played by Christian Bale) as he attempts to organize a human resistance force which could prove to be humankind's last true hope for survival in the war against their intelligent robot overlords. Opening in the year 2018 Terminator Salvation finds John Connor's certainty about the future shaken by the sudden appearance of a mysterious stranger named Marcus Wright whose last memory is of sitting on death row and awaiting execution. Unable to determine whether Marcus was sent from the future or rescued from the past, Connor begins to wonder whether there is still any hope left for the human race as the robots grow more powerful and aggressive than ever before. It appears that Skynet is preparing a devastating final attack designed to eliminate the human resistance forces once and for all, leaving Connor and Marcus with no choice but to strike back at the cybernetic heart of Skynet's operations. Once there, the two battle-scarred soldiers discover a devastating secret regarding the potential annihilation of all humankind.